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In May, Jeffery Gettleman,
a journalist from the New York Times with two colleagues, was expelled from
Ethiopia. The group had specifically asked to visit Ethiopia as tourists,
not as journalists, and had requested assistance from the Ministry of
Foreign Affairs to obtain tourist visas. It was given. Mr. Gettleman also
contacted the Ministry for assistance when there was a query over his camera
equipment at the airport. Again, it was given. His subsequent behavior then
mimicked that of an intelligence officer, or even a secret agent, rather
than that of a reporter. He even crossed the international border into
Somalia and then returned to Ethiopia clandestinely. Indeed, as his report
makes it clear he had an agenda, not the aim of producing the sort of
balanced and fair report that readers of the New York Times might expect.
Mr. Gettleman is clearly angry that he was arrested and detained by security
forces even though he was hardly behaving in a way that New York Times
journalists normally behave outside Africa. His writing reflects this.
The most offensive, and
unacceptable, element in Mr. Gettleman’s reporting is the way in which he
embellishes claims of terrorists. Indeed, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs
finds it intolerable that Mr. Gettleman is prepared to try to make
terrorists appear to look like rebels with a cause, to make heroes out of a
terrorist group whose latest exploit in April was to slaughter
indiscriminately dozens of civilian workers at the Adole oil exploration
site. Most of the 65 Ethiopians and 9 Chinese technicians massacred there
were killed while they slept. This was a straightforward terrorist atrocity.
For the Ogaden National Liberation Front (ONLF) to justify this with a claim
that warnings had been given against oil exploration in the region is simply
unacceptable. There can be no justification for the deliberate and
indiscriminate killing of civilian workers; the dead included a three year
old child. Such comments are particularly outrageous when families of those
murdered are still in mourning.
The Ethiopian government
refers to members of the ONLF as terrorists because that is exactly what
they are. Their activity cannot be justified as Mr. Gettleman tries to do,
by quoting ONLF claims of government atrocities, real or imagined. The ONLF
have, over several years, been responsible for a succession of bombings,
assassinations, and the laying of land-mines, frequently aimed at civilians
and targeting members of rival clans. Traditional leaders and clan elders
critical of the ONLF have been particular targets. This cannot, by any
stretch of imagination be identified as a liberation struggle. It is
terrorism, pure and simple.
Mr. Gettleman’s article
makes no effort to provide any understanding of the political situation in
the self-administering Somali Regional State of Ethiopia. He totally ignores
government’s efforts to talk to the ONLF, and makes no reference to the
delegation of Ogaden clan elders who unsuccessfully attempted to negotiate
with the ONLF leadership abroad last year, in the UK, Sweden and Denmark –
in fact, the ONLF has never been interested in participating in the
political process. Mr. Gettleman fails to comment on the ONLF’s membership
of the opposition "Alliance for Freedom and Democracy", set up under the
auspices of Eritrea last year. It was then the ONLF leadership removed
itself from London to Eritrea. Hundreds of ONLF fighters were trained and
armed in Eritrea before being sent to the Ogaden via the Islamic Courts
Union in Mogadishu in October and November last year.
Mr. Gettleman shows no
interest in Eritrean involvement with, and support for, the ONLF, or in what
the Eritrean government is trying to do in its attempts to destabilize
Ethiopia. All this is surely relevant to his supposed story. Instead, Mr.
Gettleman quotes US Congressman Donald Payne whose recent pronouncements
about Ethiopia and Somalia have demonstrated a serious lack of up-to-date
information about Ethiopia. Indeed, it is far from clear that facts matter
much for Congressman Payne. He knows very well that to describe Ethiopia as
a country which has no respect for democracy is completely fallacious.
Ethiopia has gradually moved through various stages of democracy in the last
16 years, culminating in the first real competitive multi-party elections in
2005. Despite some controversial elements, including the deeply regretted
riots and deaths in June and November 2005, these were largely successful.
We now have a functional, indeed, lively, opposition in parliament, and a
parliamentary body to which the administration is now answerable.
In his continuing efforts
to defame Ethiopia, Mr. Gettleman quotes ONLF fighters on the situation of
the region through which he was traveling. He repeats their claims there is
no education, no development in the Somali Regional State, and talks of
“huddles of bubble-shaped huts” passing for towns. We would certainly accept
the level of development in the Somali state remains low, but even Mr.
Gettleman’s brief visits to Jigjiga and Deghabur, should have given the lie
to such nonsense. Towns in the region like Jigjiga, Deghabur, Kebridar, Gode
and others are certainly not collections of huts. They have substantially
built schools, mosques, health centers, administrative buildings. There is a
university in Jigjiga which currently has nearly 1000 students; as of 2005
there were 23 secondary schools in the region, and some 700 primary
schools.
Ethiopian troops have not
been gang-raping women, burning down huts or killing civilians at will.
Indeed, given the ONLF’s recent actions at Adole, the latter is a
particularly outrageous claim. The Ethiopian army takes very seriously any
such claims and investigates any and all accusations that are made against
its troops.
Mr. Gettleman’s failure
even to attempt to produce a balanced picture of recent events in the Somali
regional state, and the clandestine nature of his visit, makes clear he
remains angry that he was arrested and detained. He should not be. He was
not on any legitimate news-gathering assignment. He had requested a visa to
visit tourist sites in the north of the country, and gave no indication he
wished to travel into the Somali regional state. His sudden appearance in
Deghabur, close to the site of the terrorist massacre at Adole a few weeks
earlier, was a surprise to local authorities, all the more so as Mr.
Gettleman had left Ethiopia, crossing into Somalia, and then re-entered
Ethiopia illegally. Given the state of alert following the atrocity at Adole,
the arrival of three journalists pretending to be tourists, inevitably led
to suspicion. Since Mr. Gettleman and his group were planning to make
contact with the terrorists responsible for those killings, it is hardly
surprising that the group were arrested.
The Ministry of Foreign
Affairs is always ready to welcome journalists on legitimate news gathering
assignments, journalists who are prepared to display the responsibility,
integrity and truthfulness we would expect from employees of a newspaper
with the reputation of the New York Times, though this has had to admit to a
number of serious errors on occasions. Four years ago, one journalist was
forced to resign following the discovery that he had committed a whole
series of journalistic frauds. Mr. Gettleman’s reporting has seriously
tarnished the reputation of himself and of the New York Times. It will
certainly make it harder for Ethiopia to believe in the integrity of western
news outlets. It leads to suspicion that the New York Times, like others,
has double standards with regard to reporting about Africa, and the way
their reporters behave in Africa.
Ministry
of Foreign Affairs of the
Federal
Democratic Republic of Ethiopia
Addis
Ababa
19 June
2007 |